Swingfield is a village and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in the district of
Folkestone and Hythe in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, England. The parish includes the settlements of
Densole and
Selsted.
The place-name 'Swingfield' is first attested in 1202 in the
Curia Regis Rolls, and in 1242 in the
Book of Fees
The ''Book of Fees'' is the colloquial title of a modern edition, transcript, rearrangement and enhancement of the medieval (Latin: 'Book of Fiefs'), being a listing of feudal landholdings or fief (Middle English ), compiled in about 1302, but f ...
, in both instances appearing as ''Swinesfeld''. The name means "pigs' field or open land".
Eilert Ekwall
Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (born 8 January 1877 in Vallsjö (now in Sävsjö, Jönköpings län), Sweden, died 23 November 1964 in Lund, Skåne län, Sweden), known as Eilert Ekwall, was Professor of English at Sweden's Lund University from 1909 to ...
, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'', p.457.
The village is located approximately 5 miles north of Folkestone on the
North Downs
The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills a ...
. Notable buildings include
St Peter's Church and
Swingfield Preceptory.
The tower of St Peter's Church was a measuring point for the
Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790)
The Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) was the geodetic survey to measure the relative position of Greenwich Observatory and the Paris Observatory via triangulation. The English operations, executed by William Roy, consisted of the measureme ...
linking the
Royal Greenwich Observatory and the
Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory (french: Observatoire de Paris ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its histor ...
.
References
External links
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Villages in Kent
Civil parishes in Kent